Let Go
by moonlighten
Summary: 2010: Scotland, France, America and England go on a double date. (Scotland/France, America/England.) In progress. Part 52 of the Feel the Fear series.


**20th August, 2010; Paris, France**

-  
Always mindful of his gas and electricity bills, Scotland spends the absolute bare minimum of time in the shower at home, never keeping the water running for a moment longer than he needs to complete his extremely efficient cleaning routine.

Even when he's staying at France's, he can't normally bring himself to linger. France might be unconcerned about the extra expense, dismissing it as nothing more than a 'few cents, at most', but Scotland knows that a few cents here and there add up to euros quickly enough, and the thought of frittering away that sort of money for no real purpose makes him feel uneasy, whether or not it's his own.

Besides, he's never been able to work out what people even do with themselves to drag the whole process out past the ten minute mark if they're using a shower solely for its intended purpose. He wishes he could, though, as he's run out of ideas of how to occupy himself further.

He's read the back of every bottle within reach, diligently left the conditioner on his hair for the full recommended two minutes instead of getting impatient after a handful of seconds as he usually does on the infrequent occasions he uses the stuff, and scrubbed his body inch by scrupulous inch, rinsed, then repeated the process as many times as his rapidly reddening skin can stand.

He still hasn't managed to make it to twenty minutes, regardless, never mind the half hour France had managed with such apparent ease earlier.

With a great deal of reluctance – and painfully pruned fingers – he turns off the water, wraps a towel around his waist, and then looks despairingly around the bathroom once more, longing for some fresh insight.

He had, however, picked it clean of anything approaching a distraction before resorting to a shower in the first place, and nothing new had presented itself in the interim. The contents of France's medicine cabinet have all been thoroughly inspected, not a single stray bristle remains on his cheeks or chin, and his reflection has been studied at length from every conceivable angle and wearing a variety of different facial expressions.

He had been desperate enough to check his one possible escape route earlier, but the narrow bathroom window is an impassable barrier even if the five storey drop beyond it is not. He doubts he'd manage to so much as squeeze his shoulders halfway through it. As he because he can no longer pretend at any sort of occupation, it seems, and flight is sadly out of the question, pretty much all that remains to him now is outright deceit.

He could just sit down, stare at the walls, and wait out the rest of the evening in tedious but impregnable solitude. The door is locked, and though France might well try to cajole – and probably, as his temper and patience inevitably wore thin, threaten – him into leaving, Scotland thinks it very unlikely that he'd risk damaging the wood or paintwork by breaking in.

Alternatively, he could feign a headache or, better yet, a stomach ache. Some minor ailment or other that he feared, he would tell France with equally feigned dejection, ruin his enjoyment of the night they had planned. He's certain that France would grumble and sigh but ultimately agree, then subject him to constant fussing, worried looks, and bland but strengthening broths. Unpleasant to contemplate, but still, Scotland thinks, preferable to the alternative.

Of course, there's still the window. If he's miscalculated, then all of his problems would be solved with some shuffling along ledges and then a quick slide down a drainpipe or two to finish. If he hasn't, then with any luck he'd be stuck long after seven o'clock had safely been and gone.

Or he could, and he does, realise that he's being pathetically cowardly for entertaining a single one of those thoughts. Dinner will be a disaster, with a high chance of insults, arguments, and the odd contusion, but it's only a couple of hours of his life, after all. He's suffered through far worse for France's sake – and for England's, come to that – and taken no lasting harm from it.

He can persevere.

Newly determined he might be, but any eagerness for the evening ahead remains elusive, so Scotland drags his feet, drawing out the short walk between bathroom and bedroom for as long as he possibly can. An exercise in futility, it turns out, as despite all his best attempts at procrastination, he didn't kill enough time for France to finish getting ready, much less tire of waiting and stomp off in a huff without him. He's so engrossed in the complex alchemical process of turning his hair from the soft curls Scotland loves to the gleaming straightness he prefers himself , that it seems probable that he hadn't even noticed the unusual length of Scotland's absence at all.

Scotland's deep sigh elicits no reaction from him, nor does his last ditch effort of slowly sliding his towel from his hips in a way that Scotland had hoped might look as seductive on him as he's always found it on France.

Standing there afterwards, naked but too embarrassed by his initial failure to make any further attempts to draw France's attention to that most pertinent of facts, does eventually earn him an exasperated glare, however, and a terse, "Get dressed, _Écosse_. We're running late enough as it is."

With his well of inspiration now completely drained dry, Scotland can think of no other option save compliance, especially as he has been denied refuge in his inability to pick out a decent outfit for himself by France having again taken the liberty Scotland had given him permission for months ago and chosen one himself.

The suit and shoes are Scotland's own, albeit almost unrecognisable given how neatly pressed and well polished they are respectively, but the bluey-green shirt hanging on the back of the open wardrobe door is new. Their day's interminable shopping trip had ultimately yielded nothing more than the socks France had bought at the start – which Scotland maintains look no different to any other, even though they should, by rights, have been made from fucking unicorn hair and spun gold given their price – so he can only conclude that France had bought it in advance, saving it for some occasion special enough that would justify the amount of money that the excellence of the material and fineness of the stitching suggest he paid for it.

Scotland can scarcely believe that he's deemed _dinner with England_ just such an occasion.

Expensive the shirt might be, but Scotland is unsurprised to discover that it apparently shares the same qualities as all new clothing, no matter the price. Namely, it's inflexible, a little too tight, and will doubtless prove itchy as time wears on.

Scotland stretches out his arms and arches his back, trying to make the fabric settle more comfortably. It remains stubbornly formed to some platonic ideal of someone his size, however; someone who apparently has not an inch of spare flesh anywhere on their body and has a neck roughly the same diameter as a pencil.

He feels like his shirt collars are trying to throttle him at the best of times, and this one seems to be giving a more spirited attempt at it than most. Undoing his top two buttons lessens the pressure somewhat, but brings some seam or other into prickly contact with his shoulderblades.

France scowls at his twitching attempts to shift the seam away from his skin. "Your grey shirt would probably work just as well," he says, in a tone of voice which suggests entirely the opposite.

"I'm fine," Scotland says automatically, but after a moment filled with reflection and the prickling feeling spreading out across his back at exactly the point where it's impossible to scratch without outside help of some kind, he lets his mounting irritation do the talking and adds, "Jesus Christ, France, are you sure you actually want to go tonight? You know it's going to be an absolute shit show, right?"

France looks oddly serene at the prospect. "Aren't you looking forward to seeing Canada? Or _Prusse_? You haven't spent time with either of them for months, have you?"

The jab at the Canada-shaped soft spot Scotland would never admit to possessing gives him pause, but it's such a brief one that it's hardly worth noting. "Aye, but, as I said before, England can't stand to see the two of them together, and you know what he's like. He won't be able to resist making snide comments and sooner or later Prussia will likely punch him."

That prospect doesn't appear to trouble France at all, and, to be honest, it wouldn't trouble Scotland either if they weren't going to be dining at one of his and France's favourite restaurants, which he'd really rather they didn't get themselves barred from for their party making a scene.

"Aren't you at all curious to see how _Angleterre_ and America are acting around each other now after what happened at America's birthday party?" France asks. "_Angleterre_ seemed to be going out of his way to avoid their paths crossing during all our meetings since then, and yet he was the one to propose this little get together…"

France trails off into silence, his eyebrows pointedly raised, but Scotland has no answer to give him in response. England has always played his cards close to his chest, and he's never held any more tightly than those related to America of late.

Not that Scotland is particularly concerned about his brother's silence on that score – total though it might be, seeing as though, for once, Wales, Jersey and even Portugal seem to be just as much in the dark as Scotland himself – because complete ignorance about England's romantic life has always been his optimal state of being, in any case.

Still, after all the consideration he and Wales had been forced by circumstance to give that most unpalatable of subjects, and all the anxiety it had caused them, Scotland has to admit that it might well bring a sense of closure to the whole affair to know that their trials hadn't been in vain.

That they hadn't damaged anything irreparably with that one stupid fucking misjudgement that Scotland has numbered amongst his deepest regrets for the decade since he'd discovered he'd made it.

"A little curious, I guess," he admits, reaching for his jacket.  
-

* * *

-  
France does Scotland the unexpected kindness of proposing they walk to the restaurant rather than take a taxi. He cites the warm evening and short distance as reasons for his decision, but Scotland prefers to think it's for his benefit, as a nice stroll is exactly what he needs to prepare himself for the night ahead: fresh air to clear his head, and exercise to restore the appetite that the past couple of hours of fretting has stolen away from him.

They barely get more that five paces away from France's apartment building, however, when France receives a text message that makes him groan softly when he reads it.

"What is it?" Scotland asks anxiously. He hopes the news isn't too bad, like perhaps England demanding that they go on to some bar or other after their meal and 'make a night of it'.

"Canada and _Prusse_ won't be able to make it tonight," France says, shaking his head sadly. "Apparently something urgent has come up."

Scotland has always known Canada is the most sensible of their weans by far. "He didn't happen to mention what that urgent thing was, did he?"

"Strangely enough, no."

"Clever lad," Scotland says, grinning. "Always the best way to do it, really. No extraneous details that might trip him up if England happened to go sniffing around after his whereabouts later; just straight to the point. I mean, there's no arguing with _urgent_, is there? Could be anything."

"A phone call from his Prime Minister," France suggests. "State business of the highest priority."

"Exactly, and the possibility that it might be something like that means there's no way England could argue against him skipping out without looking like an unreasonable twat. It's brilliantly done." Brilliantly done, and so obvious that Scotland wonders why he hadn't thought to do the same thing. "I don't suppose we could have something urgent to do, as well, could we?"

"I think _Angleterre_ might find it a little suspicious if we did," France says, rolling his eyes.

"I don't care, and besides, I wouldn't be lying. I think I have the urgent need to run off and become a fisherman, anyway," Scotland says, throwing out the first name of a profession that occurs to him which would involve being far away from England and his ludicrous ideas of what constitutes an acceptable way of passing their free time.

France chuckles. "I believe joining the circus is the more traditional route."

"What the hell would I do in the circus? And, no," Scotland quickly adds when he catches sight of France's crooked smile out of the corner of his eye, "I couldn't become a sword swallower. I don't think the two skills are really all that equivalent."

"I wasn't going to suggest anything of the sort," France says, with the sort of overblown affront which betrays that that precise pun had been on the tip of his tongue before Scotland interrupted him. "Nevertheless, I hardly think being a fisherman is a viable alternative. For one, you can't stand fish."

Whilst it might be true that Scotland wonders on occasion if it makes him a pretty poor excuse for a Scotsman because he can't stomach salmon, and the smell of raw fish makes him heave if he happens to catch scent of it unprepared, he suddenly feels ridiculously defensive of his randomly chosen and completely imaginary future life's work.

Enough so, that he finds himself protesting that: "Can't stand is a bit strong. It's nothing that a bit of batter can't fix, in any case." He bumps his shoulder against France's. "Think about it, France. You and me, a little boat, the open seas."

"When did I become involved in this?" France's eyebrows shoot up in obvious alarm. "I'm afraid I don't find the idea very appealing, _mon cœur_."

"But it would be just the two of us – no brothers, no distractions – cramped quarters..."

"Surrounded by fish guts," France counters, his nose wrinkling. "Exposed to the elements."

"Country of romance, my arse." Scotland snorts with laughter. "You're such a pessimist sometimes, _mo chride_."

"If it's any consolation, if I was ever forced to spend time on a trawler, I would want it to be with you," France says, smiling warmly as he links their arms together.

"I guess so." Scotland returns the smile with double the heat, and then folds his fingers over France's. "Right," he says, as they pick up their pace again and the dreadful reality of their destination looms ever closer, "I understand fishing's out of the question, but how do you feel about getting a job as a lumberjack instead?"  
-

* * *

-  
Despite all of Scotland's stalling tactics, they manage to arrive at the restaurant before England and America, if only by the very narrowest of margins.

He and France stand outside the restaurant and watch them approach, and Scotland's heart sinks yet further – it's likely somewhere in the vicinity of his big toe by now – because with almost half the length of the street between them, it's blindingly obvious that England's already in a vile mood.

America's arms are waving about in the exaggerated fashion they usually do when he's caught up in recounting one of his more outlandish tales. On any normal day, England might scoff and sneer at such stories – and typically did – but he'd end up hanging on every word just the same. Today, he looks far more interested in watching his feet as he slams them down emphatically with every step he takes. Even more tellingly, he's holding his own arms tight against his side, making himself as small and as slight as possible, in the way he always does when he's feeling particularly touch averse and doesn't want to make physical contact with anybody, even accidentally.

"Jesus Christ, look at the state of England. I think I might as well punch myself now and save us all some time," Scotland says, bending his mouth close to France's ear. "Do you reckon they've had an argument or something?"

France eyes narrow speculatively for a moment, and then he gives a quick shake of his head. "America looks happy enough, so I don't think so," he says. "I believe _Angleterre_'s trousers are the more likely suspect."

Scotland can't even begin to speculate, so – with no small amount of trepidation, given the subject – he asks, "His trousers?"

"They're a terrible fit," France informs him. He sounds disgusted, though it's impossible to tell whether that's due to Scotland's obliviousness or simply the existence of poor tailoring within his line of sight. "Probably constricting something vital. I'm not surprised he's angry."

Scotland is torn between admiring the acuity of France's eye – which must be prodigious to have spotted a small detail like that at such a great distance – and alarm that that eye had been drawn towards England's crotch in the first place.

The belated third option, schadenfreude, finally wins out, and he keeps on laughing until America breaks into a loping run to cover the rest of the gap that remains between them, and then enfolds him into a tight enough hug that it squeezes all the breath out of his lungs.

Scotland pats him on the back with increasing forcefulness, because he's found that it's the best way of making him let go before lightheadedness starts to set in. It's his sole recourse, really, seeing as though he never managed to train the lad out of the compulsion to grab at him like he did with all the others.

"I told you they'd be here," America calls out over his shoulder to England when he finally gets the message and releases Scotland. To France he then adds, "Arthur was sure that you'd bail on us like Gil and Matt."

"We wouldn't have missed it for the world," France says, smoothly and far too inclusively for Scotland's liking.

When he steps towards America, England scuttles forward, inserting himself between the two of them so suddenly that France almost ends up headbutting him.

"We're glad you could make it," he says, the words so stiff that Scotland's surprised they don't crack.

France remains frozen for an instant, lips puckered and obviously confused, but the hesitation is so brief that Scotland doubts that either England or America will have noticed it. Composure swiftly regained, France changes tack and offers his hand out for England to shake.

England ignores it.

"Shall we go find our table, then," he says, carefully manoeuvring himself so that his body forms a barrier between France and America as they walk through the restaurant's door.

France allows himself to be pushed back as England so clearly wishes, but only, it seems, because it aligns with his own desire to draw close enough that he can whisper to Scotland, "You're probably safe, _mon amour_. It appears you're not the one he wants to punch tonight."

"Do you still think it was a good idea to come?" Scotland asks him in an undertone.

"Of course." France beams delightedly. "I can't help but be all the more intrigued about how things will progress now."


End file.
